Yes, Marion, there are Santa letters

Dear Santa,

Please don’t put kids in the Marion school district on your naughty list this year.

They weren’t the ones who decided not to share their letters to you in this week’s paper. It was their teachers, who seem infected with the same “never say anything negative” attitude that motivated conspirators in the Aug. 11 raid on our newsroom.

According to the teachers, it wasn’t that we’d suggested that the school district might have fibbed when it told voters a new rec district wasn’t about adding a new tax levy — though it most certainly did.

It wasn’t about us suggesting that the district might have fibbed when it told voters that a previous bond issue was paid off — which it most definitely was not — so a new bond to pay for locker rooms and a concession stand could be approved painlessly.

Rather, they blame an editorial, which at first said was printed a year ago but actually was published two years ago.

At the time, the editorial was the topic of a social media blowup after a handful of people read only one line of it and ranted about it supposedly picking on kids. Teachers submitted Santa letters a year later. But now, two years later, their disdain for the editorial, which they now say insulted them, not kids, has led to a boycott.

We’ve republished the editorial below so everyone can decide whether teachers were right in letting politics enter the classroom.

Why care about a seemingly minor thing? This is the type of behind-the-scenes bickering and bullying that has plagued Marion, and it’s time such things are exposed before another tragic incident like the raids that contributed to Joan Meyer’s death.

Those who organized this year’s boycott seem to have let their own thin skins and quick-to-condemn nature take away holiday cheer that grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren might have enjoyed not just this year but for years to come when they looked back on Santa letters.

Letters to Santa in the paper have been part of what makes Christmas Christmas in Marion each year. We’re sorry only four of the five school districts in the county will continue that tradition this year.

Plenty of adults in Marion may deserve lumps of coal in their stockings this year. But Santa, but please don’t take it out on the kids.

— YOUR ELVES AT THE RECORD